Australiana Collecting

Australiana Collecting is the pursuit of gathering Australiana, documents and realia distinctively symbolic of Australian culture, society, geography and ecology, made in or especially for Australian use. The category spans furniture, pottery, glass, bottles, printed material, metal and wooden objects, fabrics and Aboriginal artifacts, from elaborate antiques such as engraved emu eggs to folk crafts and everyday items carrying Australian imagery, including boomerangs, Akubra hats and didgeridoos. Public holdings sit in state and national libraries, museums, universities and government institutions, and collector bodies such as The Australiana Society work to collect, study and preserve the material, which often draws on Indigenous culture or settler-pioneer imagery as an expression of Australian national identity.